House-hunting in North Texas: How four couples navigated the hot market – Dallas Morning News

They were also trying to buy a house in Carrollton — and they had been through too much rejection to let this deal slip.

Prices have soared from a median sale price of $318,045 in March 2020 to a record $380,000 in March 2022.

While some are calling it quits for now, the Gibsons are one of many families going the extra mile to get a home.

In the middle of last April, Mike Gibson was offered a job as an estate manager and private chef for a family at a large estate in North Dallas’ Preston Hollow neighborhood.

Their budget for a new home was $500,000 to $600,000.

At the first open house they went to in Carrollton, the street was lined with cars.

In the first week of May, weeks before starting the new job, Mike saw a four-bedroom, midcentury home in Carrollton with a unique koi pond sitting just outside the living room.

Their agents, Katie and Matt Harris of Rogers Healy & Associates, walked through the home for them, showing them the house on a video call.

with demands from the seller, who wanted a higher bid and wouldn’t accept an offer that was contingent on the sale of the Gibsons’ home in Commerce.

Mike hung up the phone, and 10 or 15 minutes later, the baby was born.

Kendra and the baby spent the night in the hospital.

On Saturday, less than a day later, they drove about two hours with their 1-day-old daughter to see the house for the first time.

It has a huge backyard, an extra room for guests and space for Kendra to work on her stained-glass art and Mike to do woodworking.

With so many heartaches throughout the process, Kendra said it was hard to believe that they would ever get a home, especially in a good area, but they did.

The house Jacob and Monika Thompson bought last year was far from a dream home.

The couple, who have two kids — one 16 and the other 7 — had decided to move from New Braunfels to Frisco early last year.

In January 2021, they finally took the leap, selling their home after just a week on the market.

Monika, who works as a dental hygienist, said their house in New Braunfels on a third-acre lot with a three-car garage was her dream home.

With a budget of $450,000, they found the market fiercely competitive.

They put offers on homes every weekend for three months.

Adding frustration to the process was the fact that Jacob, an Air Force retiree, was pursuing a VA loan, which put the family at a disadvantage competing with buyers who had conventional loans or could pay all cash.

With four bedrooms along with a media room and game room, it was far bigger than any other home they were looking at, and they liked the layout.

But she was swayed by texts from her brother, who convinced her that the couple would be priced out of Frisco if she didn’t go with this house.

Pele and Vonda Nunley have been on the hunt for a larger house since late 2020.

They’d like two primary bedrooms, space for multiple cars and a backyard with a pool, a sports court and plenty of space to entertain guests.

In March 2020, 1,142 homes were on the market in North Texas for $1 million or more, according to Multiple Listing Service data.

Initially the family planned to keep their home and rent it out.

Some of the houses they were interested in sold in one or two days, and some sellers only accepted cash offers.

March 30 was an exciting day for Riley and Amanda Rosvold and their two sons, one who turns 2 in April and one who’s almost 3 months old.

A friend of his who runs a residential solar company in North Texas had been trying to get him to come work for him for years.

Like many other homebuyers in a market with so few homes, they struggled to find properties they wanted to put offers on, let alone get their offers accepted.

On two homes, one in Prosper and the other in Celina, they didn’t even get a chance to put in an offer because they were off the market by the end of the day they looked.

They found that to be competitive, they had to pay over the asking price, have a large down payment and cover various fees.

The family closed on their three-bedroom house March 21, paying more than 10% over the asking price.

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